Site Changes

On 1 November 2010 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was integrated into the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and a new website established at www.oaic.gov.au.

Note 1: Major changes to the Privacy Act 1988 will come into effect in March 2014. Agencies, businesses and not for profits need to start preparing for these changes. For more information go to our privacy law reform page at www.oaic.gov.au
Note 2: From 12 March 2013 content is no longer being added to, or amended, on this site, consequently some information may be out of date. For new privacy content visit the www.oaic.gov.au website.

Now that we have issued our IPP 2 Notice, how does this affect the way we use and disclose personal information?

A Australian or ACT agency's IPP 2 notice will significantly define how it may subsequently handle personal information collected in relation to that IPP 2 notice. In general, Australian and ACT agencies are required to apply a narrow interpretation of their IPP 2 notices in their handling of personal information.

Under IPPs 10 and 11, a Australian or ACT agency should only use or disclose personal information for the purposes for which it was collected. These purposes must be consistent with the purpose stated in the IPP 2 notice.

There are a number of exceptions to IPPs 10 and 11 that may permit an agency to broaden the purposes for which it uses or discloses personal information. The Guidelines to Information Privacy Principles 8-11 discuss these in some detail.

Particular care should be exercised when relying on an exception that requires a subjective judgement to be made about what is 'reasonable' in given circumstances. For example, IPP 11.1(a) requires a difficult judgement about what a person is "reasonably likely" to know. A similarly difficult judgement is required by IPPs 10.1(d) and 11.1(e), and an agency would need to exercise care when attempting to rely on these exceptions.